and a mere effect of the Unevolved (the Prakriti); that being an agent
and so on is like colour and other qualities, an attribute of what is
objective; and that if we admit the Self to be an agent and the object
of the notion of the 'I,' it also follows that the Self is, like the
body, not a real Self but something external and non-intelligent. But
all this is unfounded, since the internal organ is, like the body,
non-intelligent, an effect of Prakriti, an object of knowledge,
something outward and for the sake of others merely; while being a
knowing subject constitutes the special essential nature of intelligent
beings. To explain. Just as the body, through its objectiveness,
outwardness, and similar causes, is distinguished from what possesses
the opposite attributes of subjectiveness, inwardness, and so on; for
the same reason the ahamkara also--which is of the same substantial
nature as the body--is similarly distinguished. Hence the ahamkara is
no more a knower than it is something subjective; otherwise there would
be an evident contradiction. As knowing cannot be attributed to the
ahamkara, which is an object of knowledge, so knowership also cannot be
ascribed to it; for of that also it is the object. Nor can it be
maintained that to be a knower is something essentially changing. For to
be a knower is to be the substrate of the quality of knowledge, and as
the knowing Self is eternal, knowledge which is an essential quality of
the Self is also eternal. That the Self is eternal will be declared in
the Sutra, II, 3, 17; and in II, 3, 18 the term 'jna' (knower) will show
that it is an essential quality of the Self to be the abode of
knowledge. That a Self whose essential nature is knowledge should be the
substrate of the (quality of) knowledge--just as gems and the like are
the substrate of light--gives rise to no contradiction whatever.

Knowledge (the quality) which is in itself unlimited, is capable of
contraction and expansion, as we shall show later on. In the so-called